The Black Road
by JWC389
Summary: The Black Road. All Stalkers walk the long and miserable path in their search to find what they desire. In this cruel world, A man walks the road to remember, and a woman walks it to forget... But the Zone always has a way of exacting a steep toll. My first crossover. Please leave reviews! I tried to stick to both lores. Rated M for adult themes (pending), violence and language.
1. Burial at Sea

**Burial At Sea**

-

_**If we're going into uncharted waters, I don't see the harm in enjoying the ride.**_  
**Are you being cute?**  
_**I've come round to your way of thinking. **_  
**Have you?**  
_**Yes. I do believe one can change things, but after all the misery, one often wishes that one had not.**_  
**you're a fatalist.**  
_**A physicist?**_  
**A fatalist. **  
_**So was Newton. Especially when it came to apples falling from trees. They always contrive to land with a splat... She left the child to burn.**_  
**Are you implying she's the apple?**  
_**I'm implying that she did not fall far from the tree.**_  
**She has no reason to go back!**

The Lutece twins rattled on, their voices cold, emotionless. Their aloofness didn't hide their disgust at Elizabeth- she could see it in the twins' eyes.  
_They know what I did. They know me for who I really am. _  
Elizabeth couldn't even summon the courage to look up, or to say a word. She only heard Sally's cries and pained screams in her ears, shrill and accusatory.

"_Too hot! Hot! HOT!_" The screams turned violent, bloodcurdling. Then, silence.

Elizabeth despised herself- no, _hated___herself. She wished over and over again to change places with Sally so that she could have been the one to burn, to scream in agony until she died.  
But she couldn't turn back time. Worse, she couldn't even summon the courage to go back to pick up the pieces of what she had broken. The drenched shawl over her head dripped cold seawater and rain onto her cheeks, replacing the tears that had long since run dry.

_**Yes... I suppose. She'll go to where she will atone.**_  
**To where she truly belongs.**

The male Lutece stopped rowing. The gentle sway of the boat turned into a violent pitch- and the quiet lap of the waves turned into mighty crashes as the sea grew savage. The twins were on the verge of shouting so that their voices would not drown in the cold, murky depths.

**We've arrived. **  
_**But even here, there are rules.**_  
**Even for one such as you. **  
_**She'll forget... For a time.**_  
**All the doors.**  
_**And whats behind all the doors.**_  
**All closed to her now.**  
_**She'll be just like the rest of us. **_  
**Forgetting the past.**  
_**The present.**_  
**The future. **  
_**I'd wager she won't even remember this coversation.**_  
**Until she atones.**  
_**One way...**_  
**Or another. **

The rowboat now rocked violently, threatening to toss all three of them into the black waters. The feral winds howled, the raindrops stung against Elizabeth's cheek, and the waves grew ever more violent. The sea hungered for the sacrifice, and its cries nearly drowned the female Lutece's last shout.

_**You're trading omniscience and croissants for misery and radiation!**_

Elizabeth was silent. A single tear rolled off her eye and mixed with the rain whipping against her skin. As she stood, the wind tore the shawl off her head, blowing the sea-soaked locks away from her pallid face. She blinked once, her eyes defeated and hollow. _Misery? _

She felt the endless guilt weigh heavily on her body. _I deserve far worse._

A hand from each of the twins gave her a hard push- and she toppled over the edge, into the water frothing all around her. The last thing Elizabeth felt was the cold murky waters consuming her and rushing into her lungs, as she sank deeper and deeper into blackness. 


	2. The Black Road

**The Black Road **

-

"Sally, wait!"  
"Come back!"  
"Sally, stop! Where are you going?"

In the blink of an eye, the sun retreated behind the clouds, and the overcast sky painted the world in sickly grey hues. The musical chirping of birds feill silent with flowing conversations of parisians, but Elizabeth hardly noticed as she ran after the girl in the pink dress. No matter how hard she ran after her, Sally always seemed to be tantalizingly out of reach; effortlessly weaving through the streets and alleys.  
"Wait!"  
Elizabeth shivered at an icy gust of wind that seemed to go right through her cotton shirt and skin. A low rumble of thunder brought sheets of rain down on her head, but she kept going, feet splashing in the puddles, ears straining to hear the little girl's voice.  
"Sally? Sally!"  
_Where on earth was she going? _  
She turned a corner, chasing after the girl's footsteps. The city seemed to rot and wither before her eyes, twisting into a nightmarish caricature of the Paris that she had always painted in ther dreams. Not a single living stirred in the grotesque, dead skeleton of what was once a city and sight sent shivers up Elizabeth's spine. A billboard was tacked with ragged papers and faded advertisements, untouched by human eyes for decades. Not a single storefront had a clean, unbroken pane of glass; everything metallic had stood against time and lost, corroded, peeled bare of paint, and covered in rust. A strange looking car vaguely resembling a luxurious bathyspheres on wheels, rested on the roadside with its body stripped down and ruined.

_What happened to this place? _

She kept on running, chasing after the sound of the child's footsteps. When she turned another corner, Sally was gone, but the sight before her pried her eyes wide open in disbelief. Buildings were twisted into bizzare, impossible shapes, seemingly defiant of the laws of gravity. Jagged cuts large enough to swallow a horse and its wagon whole were whimsically carved into the cobblestone streets, and the same mysterious force left ugly crooked gashes on the facades of neglected, crumbling buildings. Every doorway, every lamppost and every bare patch of wall had the same faded yellow posters tacked on them, emblazoned with stark, black lettering and a warning sign. All were written in French, with a rather ominous message she couldn't understand.

_**Evacuation Notice: Anomalous Zone**_  
_**Evacuate to the nearest military relief area by August 8th, 2019**_

Elizabeth's footsteps slowed. She wrapped her arms around herself, the fear cold and heavy in her heart. It was pitch black now, and the world had disappeared into darkness- but there was a single light at the end of the street. It illuminated a path leading to a stairwell... To an office below the ground. She hastened her footsteps to head down the steps, and came face-to-face with a door that had an all-too familiar sign.

"**BOOKER DEWITT- INVESTIGATIONS INTO MATTERS BOTH PUBLIC &amp; PRIVATE**"

She gave a push. A whistling, steaming temperature gauge was right in her face. _60\. 70. 80. 90_. The gauge's needle violently shook and wiggled on the dial, pointing red. With a pop, the glass shattered.  
The needle was stuck, pointing to blood red on the dial, the image stark and accusing.

_I wasn't responsible. It was Comstock! He's the monster, not me! _

Elizabeth felt a pair of eyes on her back, and turned. She gasped. A mockery of the human form stood there, dripping with black pitch. It was lopsided- almost formless, but constantly shifted between the shilouette of a man, a woman... and a girl. A whimper of fear escaped Elizabeth's throat, and she slowly backed away step by step, past the boiler that was no longer there. Each step backwards took her deeper and deeper into Booker's dark, dingy office.

"Go away." Her voice dripped with fear.  
The monstrosity paid no attention to her pitiful threat and began to stumble towards her. Its footsteps heavy. Deliberate. Wrathful.  
"It wasn't my fault!" Fear gave way to panic.  
It kept on walking. Step after step.  
"I- I didn't do anything!" Panic gave way to pleading, until sheer terror wrapped its murderous fingers around Elizabeth's throat. The form of a child seemed to emerge halfway from the black morass, and a small maw opened on its featureless face. "Hot! Hot! Too hot..." The little voice cried out, breaking into sobs; then into ear-splitting, bloodcurdling scream. "Hot! HOT! **HOT!**"

The screams stopped. Then silence.

Elizabeth broke into a half sob, the words now barely coming out of her mouth. "No... no, no, NO!" The maw closed, and the form of the child melted away into globs of black pitch that sloughed off the body of the beast. Each smoking glob landed with a heavy slap and sizzle on the ground.

"It wasn't my fault!" Elizabeth was screaming. "Leave me alone! Just leave me alone!"  
She bumped into a table, and felt the cold handle of a pistol brush against her hands. Her fingers wrapped tightly around the snubnose revolver's checkered grip, but her mind was too wild with fright to shoot. She put her hands in between her and the monster, trying to plead to it. To Sally.  
"I'm sorry!" Teardrops dripped onto the floor.  
"I'm sorry! I should... I should never have left you there!"  
A wall blocked her and refused to give way, and it closed in, step by step. Elizabeth raised the weapon, her hand too weak and shaky to aim- but she blasted away, adrenaline pounding through her body. One. Two. Three. Four. Five shots.

The bullets did nothing.

"I'm- sorry... I'm so sorry." Only tears flowed from her eyes; her breaths and sobs were frozen with terror in her throat. She dug the still smoking muzzle of the pistol behind her chin, pushing it hard into the soft flesh. The monster lurched to a stop, only a few steps away from her. It began to melt and shift again- this time vaguely resembling a woman's form, until the pitch started to sloughed off in big handfuls. Enough fell away, revealing the upper torso of a very, very familiar woman.

_It's me. _

Elizabeth looked at herself. Her white, powdered face was spattered with Comstock's blood. Her blue eyes burned with fury, and her face wore a vicious scowl. The blood red lips parted, and spoke in a voice dripping with hatred.

"No you're not... _**But you're about to be**_."

Her doppleganger's mouth tore open into a yawning hole, tearing away the face like a mask. Elizabeth saw a flash of two bloody fanged mandibles, a morass of tentacles barbed with hooks, rapidly closing in on her, inches away from her eyes-

She pulled the trigger, hoping the bullet would get to her brain first.


	3. Ready Aurora

_November 17th, 2014_  
_Operation Ready Aurora_  
_0000 Hours _  
_23km from Odessa, Black Sea_

The USS Gerald R. Ford pitched in the brutal waves of the Black Sea, and the rain savagely battered against the bridge's windows. Admiral Brian Halsey had supervised helicopter and fighter takeoffs in seas rougher than this in his decades-long career; and Captain Edward Chesterfield by his side was no stranger to the procedure either. But on that night, both men nervously stared out the windows to the dark flight deck, only lit by a few work-lights and the blinking safety strobes of the helicopters ready to take off.

Captain Chesterfield was the first to break the silence. "Never had spooks on my ship before, Admiral."

Halsey took a puff of his cigar- the tip of the hand-rolled churchill glowed orange in the dimly lit bridge. "Me neither, Ed. Twenty years and I've never seen anything like this. Twelve stealth choppers, only eight spooks and not a single damn explanation from anyone."

"Do you think it's something big, sir?"

"Call me Brian, Captain. As for this... well, the less we know the better, Ed. Shit, If I didn't get the brief on this op, it's something pretty fucking big."

"Didn't seem to be a normal covert op either, sir- I, uh, Brian."

Halsey nodded. "These spooks aren't like the rest. Seen enough damn agency men from Langley before, but these guys... they aren't just field agents."

"What makes you say that?"

"Saw plenty of field agents at the Pentagon. They'd flit in and out back during the first gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq... And other places, off my ship. Those guys, even when they were all geared up to go, they talk. Laugh. You can have a cup of coffee with 'em- sure, every damn thing they say is a lie, but they're still living, breathing, bullshitting humans. These guys? Tried talking to them more than once. Briefed em, dropped by to ask if they needed anything, tried to talk to em at the canteen... Nothing. Just dead silent. They don't talk, laugh... Not even amongst themselves, or their handlers."

Chesterfield straightened his glasses, and fell silent for a moment.  
"Black Ops, maybe. No way to explain it."  
"Blacker than black, Ed. Like I said, don't think too hard about it. Might fucking end up with a bullet in the back of your head after retirement if you go snooping too much."

Both men nervously sipped their coffee. They could see eight soldiers, clad in heavy equipment and armed to the teeth, running across the rain-slicked deck of the carrier to the waiting helicopters. Halsey felt anxious- it felt like he was looking at something that wasn't meant for him to see, but he couldn't break his gaze from the spectacle. _Eight men on a single chopper, and the damn rest are empty. What the hell is going on? _

Someone behind them stamped his boot to attention, and both men felt the coffee spill over in their cups as their hands jerked in suprise. A lone sailor, clean pressed and face hidden under a white, flameproof balaclava and a blindfold, had a briefcase telephone in his hands. He snapped his back straight to attentionm and presented the device. "Admiral Halsey, it's an urgent call."

Halsey groaned. _Fucking CIA. _He gave a curt, short grunt, "Hold it still, senior chief." He picked up the smooth plastic reciever, and pressed it against his ear. A hissing tone came from the other end of the line- and cut out, replaced by a garbled, digitized voice.

_"Message addressed to: Admiral Brian J. Halsey. Playing: Ready Aurora. Ready Aurora. Mike-Four-Three, Alpha-Six-Six, Kilo-Seven-One. Break. Mike-Four-Three, Alpha-Six-Six, Kilo-Seven-One. End of Transmission."_

The words sent a small chill up his spine_. It's a go. _With a grimace, he turned to Chesterfield.

"Well Ed, looks like we're ready to roll. Get us ready for flight ops and put us on course. Tell them to get those OGAs off the deck and to wherever the hell they're going. Eight of them's more than enough to creep me out."

Both men looked at one another in apprehension. Chesterfield nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. "Aye aye, Admiral."

"And god help us if those spooks are up to no good."

-

_"Alright spookies, lets get spooking." _

_One of the mysterious men mumble as he shuts the door of the Stealth Hawk. A few distorted chuckles come from faces hidden under closed-cycle breathing masks. The coated,anomaly-treated lenses of the heavy black respirators catch the glint of the cabin's dim red lights, and the men shuffle a little, cradling their weapons in their laps for the long ride ahead. A few lean their heads back to sleep, a few silently rack the bolts on their weapons, check magazines, and inspect their equipment- but all are unperturbed at the knowledge that within fifteen minutes, that they will be dead men. _

_One counts down on his watch. Five minutes pass. Then another five. Soon, the numbers on his military watch reset. 00:00. Someone coughs. A hundred miles away at the exact time, eight bagged corpses are taken out of a morgue, and each are given new identities to wear. They are silent and accepting, just like the previous owners of their new names and histories. Nervous agency men, deep down in the bowels of Langley, sweat profusely. They all look up to an array of cold, glowing screens in a dark room hazy with anxiety and cigarette smoke, praying and watching. They see the Gerald R. Ford off the stormy coast of Odessa; and they see a single helicopter peel away from the rest._

_The lone blip on the screen flies past the coast of Odessa, towards Kiev, pointed towards the Zone. _

_As the helicopters silently fly under Ukranian coastal radars, the media is fed reports of a 'show of force' gone wrong. Telephones in the pentagon ring incessantly through the night, and hundreds of politicians in both Moscow and Washington watch the news. The Russians scoff and the Americans watch the screens with consternation at the headlines that roll past the television screen over and over again. _

_**"Eight Special Ops Soldiers in helicopter crash off the coast of Odessa - Exercise to enforce Neutrality Area around the Zone - Presumed KIA" **_

_The men in the helicopter are the calmest of them all, unperturbed in the eye of the elaborate, orchestrated storm. They focus only on faithfully playing their new parts as spectres, in an masterfully crafted act of subterfuge. Their Stealth Hawk stops short of crashing nose-first into the choppy ocean, and skims the foamy crests of the waves- and one by one, the men quickly tear off their unit's patches on their arms and vests. In the gloomy red world of the cabin, the white-and-silver stitching on the black cloth roundel is stark and plain. _

_-Strategic Security Initiative. ODA-1A. 'Intrepidus Mortuus.'-_

_A man closest to the door slides open the chopper's doors, the gathered patches in his hand. It is more a ritual than a precaution- they are all fake men, working for a fake bureau wearing patches of an organization that does not exist. Still, it completes the right of passage; and the patches are scattered into the howling winds and the icy rain, into the rough black waters below. _

-

_They fly deep into the heart of the Zone, the night around them still inky black. The pilots with their bug-eyed helmets guide the chopper through with inhuman skill, weaving through fields of airborne anomalies. The flight finally reaches the outskirts of Pripyat, arriving at a large gravelly clearing not too far from the northern end of the dead city: silent rotors whip up dust as the helicopter spares only a brief moment to hover close above the ground. _

_The men leap out quickly without hesitation. Eight pairs of boots tramp on the ground and form a small defensive circle. Practiced hands flip down four-tubed night vision modules over masked faces, and hands steadily hold weapons at the ready. Before any of them can look back, the helicopter disappears quickly over the treetops._

_The men take the cue and they all melt away into the trees surrounding the clearing. One by one with rehearsed, surgical movements, they all start towards their destination, not knowing the price that the black road will exact. _

_-_

_A sniper, or a bad stroke of luck, they don't know in the confusion- But the man lies in the grass, last words bubbling out of the gory red hole in his throat. His life drains out of him in warm, coppery gouts of crimson, and they helplessly watch as he dies with both eyes open. _

_That night, they all bury the fallen man in silence. There is little remorse or melancholy, but they are solemn and quiet. __**We are dead men walking, **__they remind themselves. _

_But it is not long until they lose another._

_Seven men. They capture the same sniper after he kills another one of them- and in a blind rage, they skin the killer alive. The work is bloody and the man's horrifying shrieks of pain ring throughout the forest. Insane with bloodlust, they proudly hold up a bloody, dripping skin, displaying it to nobody in particular. The flayed man hangs upside-down from a twisted, dead tree, his blood watering the parched, dry wood. By nightfall, they all sit silently, until one of them tosses the skin in the fire. _

_Six men. Panic. Gunfire. And then, an anomaly. The man dies in agony, shrieking as he reaches for his legs, which are now rendered into poison-soaked, rotting black stumps. They shoot him to put him out of his misery, and drag his body away to bury what's left of the rotting, putrid corpse. The screaming and the sound of bubbling, burning mutilated flesh lingers in their ears.____Some take sleeping pills, hoping for a dark, heavy and dreamless night of sleep._

_Five men. They run for shelter from a blowout, leaving the wounded man behind. The apocalyptic roar of the Zone's rage drowns out his pleas as they all dive for cover in a concrete drainage ditch. When night falls, they can hear his cries, faint and wispy in the distance, and they all frantically search for him in the darkness. When they follow his voice in the heavy rain, they find his body, face-down in a puddle. The milky white eyes of the corpse stare into oblivion, the accusing, haunting gaze ever-present in their dreams. When the sleeping pills no longer do anything, some whisper over and over again in the night. __**We are dead men walking. **_

_Four men. He disappears in a white hot flash of flame as he strays too close to an anomaly. His scream is inhuman, and he barely crawls out of the flames, his suit melted in large patches When they try to flip him over, the flesh slides off his bones. He begs for one last smoke voice barely audible through his charred throat- and he smiles painfully as he sucks down his cigarette, down to the butt. He painfully nods, and they shoot him through the all push the body back into the flames before the dogs can devour his cooked corpse._

_Three men. This time, he stays alive long enough to hand them a photograph with his free hand. The other hand remains glued to his abdomen, holding his own intestines back from spilling into the cold morning air. They look at the photo: It's a battered, dog-eared picture of a small but happy family, now smeared with blood. He implores them to deliver it to his home, and begs them to tell his family that he died quickly and bravely. They hastily agree and leave him to die, propped up against the bullet-riddled trunk of an old oak. A gunshot rings out from behind them and the birds scatter from the treetops. _

_They curse themselves. __**We are dead men walking. **__They burn the photo with a lighter, knowing that they will never be able to fulfill his last dying wish. _

_Two men. The lone survivor cradles him in his arms. His face is peaceful, pale and bloodless, even amidst the chaos. Around them lie mutilated bodies of monolith Stalkers, smouldering craters, and a blanket of brass casings- but despite the valiant defense, it is a Phyrric victory. _

_The dying man takes his hand away from the jagged wound in his neck. The cut is deep, cruelly torn open by a stray bullet. Lips curled into a dying smile, he looks up to the last survivor, his only friend, with his glassy grey eyes. In a voice more earnest than ever, clear and unmuffled by a mask- he speaks, breaking the oath. In the last moments before his death, he is alive. Sad. Frightened. In his shaking, weak hands, he holds up a small, ruggedized military hard-drive. _

_He gasps out with a last, shuddering breath. _

_"Take it, James. Finish what we started." _

_-_

_The lone survivor runs away into the fog. His breaths are ragged, and his body is loaded down with whatever gear he could salvage. Fear dances in his eyes as he runs for dear life, away from the massacre- In the distance, he can already hear the dogs baying, chasing the scent of freshly spilt blood. Face is frozen tight, he tries to push away the primal terror that threatens to grip his nerves; when he hears the barks getting closer and closer, he turns around, and fires away at a few dogs. Several drop in their tracks, but the rest now chase after him, hungry for fresher prey._

_He tries to drop the rucksack, but the quick-detachment buckles jam. In that moment, he knows that his fate is sealed- and he instinctively reaches for a grenade on his belt. The sphere packed with a half-kilogram of Composition-B is cold and smooth in his gloved hands, and he pulls the pin, letting the spoon fly free from the grenade. It hits the asphalt with a heavy clatter._

_The dogs leap. One smashes into his chest as he fires wildly at the writhing mass of snarling jaws and radiation-blasted hides. Yellow, vicious teeth flash before his eyes- but all he can think of is killing. He snaps the dog's neck, and tries to lift himself, feeling the jaws clamped all over his armoured limbs. _

_He counts down the seconds. Three. Two. One. _

_There is no flash. No explosion. And for a moment, he is confused. Then enraged. With a vicious, animal shout, he tries to hurl the dogs off of his limbs- but the jaws free on their own accord, and the dogs leap away- before circling him, their growls hungry and savage. _

_He stares them down with hatred, and they stare back. A small moment in time stretches on forever. He bottles his fear up tight, knowing that the mutants will leap at the slightest scent. _

_One snorts, stops in its tracks, and turns away. The rest of the pack follow after it, and the dogs melt away into Pripyat's grey streets and alleyways. _

_He falls to the ground on his knees, and blankly stares at the white, fog-shrouded void in the distance. _

-


End file.
